How to Avoid Common Muscle Building Myths

Tell someone that you're trying to gain muscle and their response will likely be, "eat more." While you need to eat a lot to gain muscle, eating too much is just one of the common muscle building myths.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. If you tell someone that you're having trouble gaining weight, they immediately tell you to start eating everything you see regardless of how healthy it is. Hamburgers, cupcakes, pizza, candy bars and coke are all OK because they are all high in calories. Eating everything in sight will cause weight gain but probably not the kind you're looking for. To gain healthy weight, you need to eat healthy food, not junk.

2. Are you doing low repetitions with high weight in hopes of bulking up? If so, you can stop. The low rep, high weight vs. high rep, low weight doesn't make a difference in the size of your muscles. Low reps with high weight will give you muscular strength while the opposite will build on your muscular endurance. As long as you are pushing each set to failure, your muscles will be overloaded and they will get stronger and grow.

3. A lot of muscle magazines lead you to believe that you need to train till it hurts. If you keep pushing yourself and pushing yourself like the people in those magazines, eventually you'll get just as big as them, right?. Wrong. The people in those magazines (at least the ones that aren't taking any illegal substances) have the genetics to support all that muscle. If you are eating enough and working out 3-5 times per week, you should start to see the muscle pack on. Remember that muscle doesn't grow overnight and comparing you (a beginner) to someone who has been lifting weights their entire life isn't realistic.

4. Protein is a bodybuilders favorite nutrient. Although protein is the building block of all body's tissue (including muscle), eating more protein won't necessarily lead to more muscle. Your body only needs a certain amount of protein each day which increases with how much exercise you're doing. Recommendations over 300 grams per day (which is pushed by some muscle magazines) is way over the top. Since excess protein can't be stored in the body, if you eat too much, it will get converted to fat.

5. Eating fat doesn't automatically make you fat. Some people stay away from foods that contain fat because they think that the only purpose of fat is to make you overweight. The only thing that causes fat to pile up on your body is an excessive calorie intake combined with a lack of exercise. It doesn't matter if you eat too many carbs, too much protein or a lot of fat, the effects will be the same. You can get body fat from too much protein and too many carbs. Your body needs some fat to properly function so don't limit yourself out of fear of getting fat from fat.

6. For more information on bulking up, visit the Guide to Gaining Muscle. You can also check out the nutrition and exercise forums to see how others have successfully gained weight. These links can be found below under resources.

Resources

• How much protein do I need each day?
• Guide to Gaining Muscle
• Nutrition and Exercise Forums

[mappletree]

on 4/5/2009 I HAVE TRIED MANY WORKOUTS I STRONGLEY BELIEVE IF YOUR AIM IS TO INCREASE MUSCLE MASS FOR THE ECTOMORTHS LIKE ME THOSE WHO ARE USUALLY TALL AND THIN LOW WEIGHT AND HIGH REPS DOESNT MAKE SENCE AND DOES NOT WORK I HAVE NOT ONLY PRACTICED THIS BUT HAVE READ IT IN MANY BOOKS NOT WEIGHT LIFTING MAGAZINES SOME GOOD ADVISE OTHERWISE

[Rockney]

on 12/10/2008 Great ideas for muscle building! 5*!

[CBeatrix]

on 10/24/2008 I think it's well said! As a natural health counselor, I especially want to point out the nutrition part. As you wrote it, whether you want to lose or gain or keep your weight, by all means, you need to eat healthy food, and eventually, your body will "find" its natural weight. Step 4 and 5 are very important as well! Great work! 5 *